Old Codgers Of The Week – Part Two

There is much concern about the growing menace posed by mobility vehicles on our pavements and a head of steam is building up to regulate their usage. To add fuel to the fire for the case for reform consider this incident involving 92 year-old mobility scooter user, Eileen Mason of Swindon.

Returning with her 75 year-old friend, Margaret Seabrook, from a meeting of their lunch club, they were confronted by an individual going about his unlawful business of trying to relieve Ms Seabrook of her bag. Showing the presence of mind that characterises our elderly – and, possibly, the inability to distinguish the accelerator from the brake – Ms Mason drove her scooter into the malefactor, knocking him to the ground. He then made good his escape, becoming another statistic of the carnage being wreaked by these mobility aids.

Naturally, Ms Mason, according to press reports, having gone through the war and all the bombings, wouldn’t let a weasel like that hold her back. She would stand up for herself again, she averred, no mean feat if you are dependent upon mobility aids.

Sadly, though, 80 year-old Ron Broomfield from Alford in Lincolnshire will no longer add to the colourful eccentricity of English life as it was reported this week that he had shuffled off to the Underland. Broomfield found fame because of his collection of garden gnomes, some 1,800 accumulated over 50 years. So committed was he to his hobby that friends and relatives would buy him gnomes for Christmas and birthdays. One year his niece decided to buy him some bird seed instead. So upset was he – imagine that! – that she caved in and bought him a gnome as well.